During training, an apprentice learns how to use tools associated with a particular trade. Usually, the training process involves the apprentice, under supervision, practicing with the actual tools to conduct a specific action upon a subject. For example, the subject in this respect can be a living organism or an inanimate object, particularly dependent upon the type of tool being used. Tool manipulation skills can be developed, for instance, until the apprentice can become adequately proficient at the trade. Even in the medical field, for example, a medical student or surgeon-in-training learns the skills of handling specialized tools for performing different types of surgical or interventional procedures.
In medical training, the surgeon-in-training typically learns the art of tool handling on a cadaver, animal, or box-type trainer. However, in recent years, systems have been developed that allow a trainee to practice surgical procedures in a virtual environment where no real bodies are needed. In some virtual reality systems, the actual handle of a surgical tool is removed from the rest of the tool. Sensors are then attached to the surface of the handle to detect the position and orientation of the tool in a three-dimensional space. An interface allows the sensors to communicate with a computer and information related to how the handle is manipulated is transferred to the computer for further processing. Images of the tool in a virtual realm are displayed on a visual display device to simulate, in a visual sense, how an actual tool might affect the subject in reality.
One disadvantage of the conventional virtual reality system, in which sensors are attached to the surface of a handle of the tool, is that specific simulation hardware is required for each tool. Thus, it can be very expensive to configure the appropriate sensing hardware and software for a large number of different tools. In order to overcome these and other deficiencies of conventional systems, and to more realistically simulate tool-handling procedures, further improvements can still be made in the field of virtual reality involving the manipulation of tools. Not only can improved systems provide a trainee with more realistic training, but also improvements can be made to provide additional benefits, as well as improved tool design methodologies and rapid prototyping of new instruments.